Chapter 0 — The History of Gravitation Theory
Science grows through the rational integration of observed phenomena, augmented by imagination-fueled extrapolation, and adjusted by new and more precise observations. Put another way, the whole body of scientific knowledge grows by a process of observing and analyzing things, imagining new ideas based on those observations, and then testing the new ideas with better observations. Science is not only discovery; it’s a combination of discovery and imagination. Why? Because what we discover by observing things depends largely on what we’re looking for. Imagination causes us to look for more, and thus we discover more.
Keep that assertion in mind during this introductory, historical chapter, the main purpose of which is to build a case for the book’s theoretical form. Although I will present complex mathematical equations and derivations from time to time, when necessary to clarify theoretical details, the mode of discussion in this book is predominantly logical rather than mathematical.
The earliest gravitation theories—the ancient ones—were logical in the extreme of being almost entirely philosophical. At that time mathematics hardly existed beyond simple arithmetic. Scientists were centuries away from discovering how much more they could express via the analytical notations that emerged during the second millennium A.D.
Most of the recent theories are heavily mathematical, employing modern higher mathematical developments. And yet, many such theories focus so much on math that they almost neglect logic, philosophy and common sense. Albert Einstein said, “The whole of science is nothing more than the refinement of everyday thinking.” To me this little quote says many profound things, and one is that no matter how deep and abstruse a scientific principle may be, it should be expressible in a manner that an ordinary person with common sense can understand. One of the scientist’s most important challenges is to explain science in a common-sense way.
Chapter 1 — Gravitation: The Phosemnotic Theory
This chapter jumps to the conclusion. It may be a big jump, but by the end of the chapter, after defining a number of premises and terms, I will state the proposed theory of gravitation. The remainder of the book will then elaborate the theory, present rationale, and propose how the theory explains and is consistent with modern physics observations from quantum to astronomical levels.
I have termed the proposed theory phosemnoty, or the phosemnotic theory. The coined words phosemnoty (fə-sĕm´-nə-tē) and phosemnotic (fō´-sĕm-nŏt´-ĭc) come from the Greek roots φως (phos), to shine, and σεμνοτες (semnotes), a somewhat figurative word for gravity. By the end of this chapter the reader will learn how the phosemnotic theory links shining and gravity.
Premise no. 1. The first premise for the phosemnotic theory is that the entire physical universe is composed of electromagnetic energy.
The expression ‘electromagnetic energy’ will be used frequently enough in this book that I have coined a short word for it: wem (which rhymes with gem). This word is based on the physics notation Wem, where W = work = energy and the subscript ‘em’ specifies that the energy is electromagnetic.
It should be easy for modern educated people to accept that wem includes free energy—electromagnetic waves, such as light, radio waves, laser rays, and so on. It might not be as easy to see that every particle of matter is a bundle of wem, even though most people with a technical education have been so taught. We will explore this premise in chapter 2, Energy as Matter.
Premise no. 2. The second premise is that a vacuum denotes the absence of all energy, both matter and free energy, not just the absence of matter. Einstein himself asserted this point <cite>. Considering how improbable it is for us to reach or observe any point where no electromagnetic energy is propagating in any form, Einstein concluded that vacuums do not exist in the universe as we know it. For the purposes of this book, non-vacuous means having the presence of some amount of energy in any form, whether matter or free energy, or both.
Premise no. 3. The third premise is that electromagnetic propagation velocity c (i.e., the speed of light) is highest in a vacuum and is reduced at any point in the universe by the presence of energy (whether matter or free energy) at that point. Per the second premise, the propagation of wem through a region renders the region non-vacuous and reduces c in that region. The second and third premises are discussed in chapter 5, The Behavior of Energy in a c Gradient.
Premise no. 4. The fourth premise is that the principles of electromagnetic propagation apply to the bundle of wem of which a particle of matter is composed. Although in modern physics matter is called energy “at rest,” the wem in a particle is anything but restful. Even the primitive Bohr model of the atom illustrates this dynamic nature with its concept of electrons spinning around a nucleus. The energy is at rest in the sense that it is not freely racing across the universe; but within the confines of the atom and its subatomic particles, electromagnetic waves are continuously propagating and thereby giving the particle its many properties—material, chemical, electrical, and so on. This premise is further discussed in chapter 2, Energy as Matter.
Hypothesis no. 1. The first of the four hypotheses, which are based on the four premises and also build on one another, is that every particle of matter radiates wem. A particle is made of wem and is in fact a bundle of wem, and this hypothesis suggests that each particle continuously “leaks” some amount of its wem. This hypothesis further proposes that the amount of wem radiated by each particle is consistent with its mass; thus, the amount of radiated wem (i.e., the rate at which wem is radiated) is directly proportional to the mass of the particle. Because we will eventually link this matter-radiated wem to gravitation, we refer to it as “gravitational radiation.”
Hypothesis no. 2. The second hypothesis, building on the first, is that the wem radiated by matter has a frequency that is orders of magnitude higher than any of the wem physicists have hitherto observed and studied—far higher than visible light, ultraviolet waves, x rays, gamma rays, etc. This hypothesis further proposes that this “unimaginably high” frequency wem is largely unaffected (i.e., neither absorbed, reflected, nor significantly attenuated or deflected) as it passes through non-vacuous regions. The first and second hypotheses are discussed in chapter 3, Gravitational Radiation.
Hypothesis no. 3. The third hypothesis of phosemnoty is that the reduction of c at any non-vacuous point in space is a function of both the intensity and the frequency of the wem at that point. Thus, a high-intensity wem having a very low frequency will have little impact on c, while an extremely high frequency wem will substantially reduce c even if the intensity is low. Except for highly idealized scenarios, it can be practically assumed that in any region where wem exists, the density of wem will vary continuously in both space and time, and therefore at any point within a non-vacuous region there is a three-dimensional gradient with respect to c. Although wem density results from all wem at a point, not just the gravitational radiation emanated by matter, the second and third hypotheses render the “other” (lower frequency) radiation almost negligible for the purpose of establishing the c gradient. This hypothesis is discussed in chapter 4, Electromagnetic Propagation Velocity Gradients.
Hypothesis no. 4. The fourth hypothesis is that any wem—in other words, any ray of electromagnetic waves, any particle of matter (which is a bundle of electromagnetic waves), or any material object (which is a bundle of particles)—when traveling through a non-vacuous region, will curve in the direction of lower c, which is the direction of higher wem density locally at the point of the traveling wem of interest. The fourth hypothesis is discussed in chapter 5, The Behavior of Energy in a c Gradient.
Now we can put it all together and state the phosemnotic theory: Gravity (along with the curvature of space-time described by Einstein’s general theory of relativity) is the electromagnetic propagation velocity gradient produced by the electromagnetic energy continuously radiated by all matter.
The rest of the book consists of elaborating the premises, explaining and justifying the hypotheses, and evaluating the theory with respect to established tenets of physics.